Tonight marks the final game of the 2010/11 season, a season that will end with a worse record than the season before. It's been an interesting year to be a Wizards fan. Nobody here had any pretenses that this would be a competitive team for the title. Nobody thought they would content, and they didn't. Maybe we didn't think it would be this bad at times, but it's hard for me to come away from this year thinking the Wizards really let us down.
That makes the ending of the year interesting to me. Last year was such an emotional rollercoaster, because of everything that happened. In February, I figured I would be happy to see the season end; by April, I was sad that there was no more Wizards basketball again. I was energized by the Shaun Livingston story, which I felt was one of the cooler things to happen in the sport in a while. That kept me going.
This year, though, is interesting. I'm not really sure what to think about the year ending. There's no angst over Gilbert Arenas' situation. There's no bona fide prize at the top of the NBA Draft. There might not even be any basketball at all next year. Instead, there's a sense that the future will be better than the present, even though we don't know when the future will happen. Compared to the big questions of last year, I can't even really put together a strong opinion on what the team should do with Nick Young.
So, it's odd. I don't treasure this season, and I'm not going to look back on it as one of my most memorable as a fan, especially if the Wizards do fully turn it around, but I'm kind of ambivalent about the offseason. Maybe this is what it means to be a part of a rebuild.
Am I completely off my rocker here? Does this make any sense? How are you all feeling about the end of the year?